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Main findings Impact on jobs 68% of online survey participants reported a move to only working from home, with 12% furloughed, 12% reporting no change and 8% noting a change to increased home working. There was also a site closure resulting from a COVID-19 outbreak on site. This is more an indication of how the contributors were impacted rather than the sector as a whole. For example, several contributors indicated that their less experienced colleagues were the majority of staff being furloughed.
What has gone well? Overwhelmingly, participants reported a positive opinion of how the sector had adapted to the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic. Many reported feeling that they were more efficient and productive working at home, as interruptions and unproductive times, such as travel time, were drastically reduced, and could instead be used more productively to complete tasks. However, as explained in the next section, this was dependent on the home environment. The coronavirus pandemic period appears to have been a driving force to accelerate change in the sector. Often these changes were already in the pipeline – for example, moving to more flexible ways of working and cloud-based platforms, and video conferencing, but the need to work from home meant that these initiatives were implemented much more quickly. Collaboration and innovation have been key to finding solutions to the challenges of working remotely. Teams quickly adapted to holding online meetings, with Microsoft Teams being the most commonly used platform. 20% of participants in the online survey reported communication with colleagues as being one of the biggest successes during this period. In the online round tables, a participant from a company with regional offices said that the change in ways of working had made them feel more like a part of a wider team. Furthermore, it was reported that companies were utilising their expertise more efficiently. Where previously staff had worked in regional teams, there had been a shift to choosing staff from across the regions to work in teams according to their skillsets. Companies had databases of staff competences, but they were not being used as widely before the pandemic. It was relatively easy to link home based-computers to more powerful machines back in the office via a Virtual Private Network (VPN), where processor intensive work was needed for rendering etc. Using VPNs also had the advantage of providing similar levels of confidentiality and security that is available on office-based machines. The online survey revealed that 75% of participants had access to BIM when working remotely. It was noted that often it was the younger staff members who had come up with solutions to challenges surrounding the use of IT. Most participants said they felt they would not go back to using offices as they had done previously. Instead, they felt they would continue working from home and use office spaces when face to face contact was needed.
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